A Cold War Tourist and His Camera

Please note our Canadian shopping cart is down as we transition to UTP Distribution. While purchases cannot be made through our website at this time, you can find many of our titles at your local bookstore!

A photographic tour of hot spots in Europe, America, Canada, and Africa during the height of the Cold War.

Cold War-era imagery is defined by the striking contrast between the ideal of the nuclear family and the nightmare of nuclear annihilation. In 1963, Warren Langford, a Second World War air force veteran and career public servant, travelled through Europe, North America, and Africa as part of the National Defence College's curriculum of Cold War training. Langford, never before much interested in photography, bought a camera and produced some 200 slides of his travels. In A Cold War Tourist and His Camera, his art historian daughter and political scientist son bring his photographs - an unexpected combination of iconic images of Cold War dangers and touristic snapshots - back into view.

Martha Langford and John Langford examine their father's apparently innocuous photographic experience, revealing the complexity of both the images and their creator. An intelligent and personal look at the ways that the historical and the private are represented and remembered, A Cold War Tourist and His Camera stages the family slide show as you've never seen it before.

"A book full of observations and pointed comments about Canada's role in NATO and in world politics of the time. Indeed, the text can serve as a brief introduction to Cold War politics." The Montreal Gazette"This book is welcome addition to a growing body of literature concerning Canada's experience of the Cold War... With this publication, the authors have made a significant contribution to both the history of the period and our knowledge of photography in Canada, in a text that intertwines personal with public histories." Debra Antoncic"While recovering the photographic memories of those departed remains a nigh on impossible task, A Cold War Tourist's attempt is laudable. Extensively researched and intelligently written, the study illuminates their father's fascinating Cold War photographic collection." Alex Ferguson, 49th Parallel“This is a wonderful book, written with wit and clarity. I felt like I had turned on the TV for entertainment only to find myself embroiled in something much darker and more complex than I had bargained for.” John O’Brian, author of Beyond Wilderness: The Group of Seven, Canadian Identity, and Contemporary Art"An interesting collaboration, with son and daughter focusing their respective academic disciplines on their father’s conjuncture with a particular historical moment. Mirrors, resonances, echoes…. Fascinating." Reg Whitaker, author of Canada and the Cold War

Martha Langford holds a Concordia University Research Chair in Art History and is the author of Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums and Scissors, Paper, Stone: Expressions of Memory in Contemporary Photographic Art.

John Langford is a professor in the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria and is the author or co-author of numerous books and articles on administrative reform and public sector ethics.